Hiram Hightower

Submitted by sfr on Fri, 2020-03-13 11:04
Character Key Number: 
3673
Display Name: 
Hiram Hightower
Sort Name: 
Hightower, Hiram
Ever Present in Yoknapatawpha?: 
Yes
Biography: 

The man in The Reivers who in 1886 "converts the entire settlement" at Ballenbaugh's "with his fists" is named Hiram Hightower (74). His description allows us to say for sure that he is "a giant of a man," and served during the Civil War as both a "trooper" and a "chaplain" in Nathan Bedford Forrest's cavalry unit (74). On the other hand, the narrative says nothing about a possible relationship between this Hiram Hightower and the two Gail Hightower's in Light in August, the senior a Confederate cavalryman and chaplain who is killed in 1863, and the junior his grandson, a Presbyterian minister and one of Faulkner's more memorable characters, but since these Hightowers are from a different part of Mississippi, it's unlikely that Faulkner imagined any relationship between them and Hiram.

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